[csaa-forum] postgrad labour

[Jane Armstrong]

Dear Greg

Great to see someone addressing this issue.

At my Uni over the past 5 years, sessional conditions have deteriorated through the following decsions:

a) reducing the teaching semester to 12 weeks effectively reducing sessional pay by 2 weeks without reducing class sizes and marking. In my experience, one of the consequences of this decision is an increase in the number of students seeking out of class support with assignments (also not accounted for in sessional conditions and pay).

b) Increasing reliance on sessionals to coordinate courses in some cases without extra pay.

c) A new decision that class sizes should be a minimum of 25 (possible increased marking without additional pay)

d) The lack of job opportunities for post-grad students make the building of a teaching profile (and the completion of the PhD) a labour of love not a professional development.

It seems to me that undergraduates and sessionals are bearing the brunt of recent 'reforms' to the university sector and the university hierarchies are in denial about this.

Of course, I suppose this should come as no surprise to cs students and practitioners - after all, cs exists within an ISA :)

I will answer your specific questions in an email directly addressed to you - but you inspired me to have public rant first ( how scary)

Jane Armstrong

----Original Message-----
From: csaa-forum-bounces at lists.cdu.edu.au on behalf of Glen Fuller
Sent: Thu 14/07/2005 12:51 PM
To: csaa-forum at lists.cdu.edu.au
Subject: [csaa-forum] postgrad labour
 
Hi list,

To help me with an upcoming talk/paper I was wondering if it would be 
possible for any postgrads on the list to email me through details of 
academic employment. I want a brief sketch that outlines the nature of 
extra-thesis postgrad labour and what role this plays in the broader 
academic workplace. Specifically what I want are answers to these 
questions:

1) year started and number of semesters of postgrad study/research
2) scholarship stipend recipient, yes or no?
3) employed in academia during postgrad study/research, yes or no?
4) if yes to 3, was work short-term contract based, yes or no? 
5) if no to 3, have you been employed elsewhere what was the nature of 
the work?
6) if yes to 4, then number of semesters working short-term contract 
work, split into rough percentage of a) research assistant work and b) 
teaching/tutoring work.
7) a) What percentage of above work if any was _for_ your supervisor
(s), b) what percentage was _organised_ through your supervisor(s), c) 
what percentage was organised through other academic contacts, and d) 
what percentage was not organised through any contacts at all ('cold' 
job application)?

This is not meant to be a 'total' social science style survey of 
employment amongst postgrads, but just a few figures to throw around to 
enable a discussion.

my email is (as above): gfuller at uws.edu.au

I welome any comments or anything on any actual research on the topic 
of postgrad labour. Identities of commentators will remain anon if so 
desired.

My basic thesis is that postgrads are a necessary excess of academic 
labour. That is, necessary for the maintenance current power relations 
within the university workplace. 

What I find personally alarming are the parallels between casualised 
academic labour (especially amongst postgrads) and what is happening in 
the broader community regarding questions of IR reforms. It seems to me 
that if John Howard really does want to drive the quality of life down 
to sufficient levels to compete with the productivity of emerging 3rd 
world countries, then maybe he should model IR reforms on the system 
that allows for the continual employment of casual academic staff. 

ciao,
glen.

-- 
PhD Candidate 
Centre for Cultural Research
University of Western Sydney

Read my rants: http://glenfuller.blogspot.com/

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